Sexual Templates in my brain

[Tedure]

I read this amazing article on Sexual templates or brain imprinting by therapist Esther Perel, It has helped me a lot:
“Tell me how you were loved as a child and I will tell you how you make love as an adult.”


She goes on to say, “The earliest childhood experiences contribute to various sexual imprinting and templates. The way children are cared for—or not--by their caretakers and other important people in their lives from birth to early teens seem to be the most important in shaping one’s love map and sexual template. Certainly things beyond this age also shape what turns us on and off but the most crucial years are those which are earlier.


Sex addicts desire to connect with others but due to childhood disconnection with their parents (due to abuse, neglect, abandonment, addictions, etc.) the addict attempts to fill the void by bonding with something/someone “safe” and controllable- their sexual template. The sex addict tries to connect with the “unreal” (or fantasy) rather than the a real connection.


Sexual templates are sexual behaviors which turn us on the most. Our sexual template is an expression of our inner core, windows into another facet of who we are. A sexual template imprinted on a child from their experience while being abused is extremely damaging and destructive. Whatever gives you the greatest pleasure sexually is information about you. It’s telling a story, in some cases a story about your sexual abuse… not necessarily on a conscious level. You’ll find aspects of yourself that you've been seeking all along and trying to understand. If you want to understand the logic of your sexual behaviors or sexual templates you have to understand how you were loved or not loved as a child.


You may ask if sexual templates can change. I do not know of any research which shows they can be stopped. The reason the sexual fantasies and templates are so strong and are not able to be changed is that they come from the earliest time in our lives when our brains were imprinted most profoundly.


What is possible is to add to the sexual templates (This allows you to change your focus and when you change the way you look at things the things your looking at change!) You can learn new sexual ways to become turned on. You can create other-new sexual templates. It is also possible to prevent your sexual desires from ruling you and your behaviors. It does not have to dictate how you act on them. However you may still find yourself continuing to be aroused by them.”


I believe this explains the origins of my Sexual addiction and imprinting. To stop the bleeding you must identify the source of the pain.

I believe understanding this concept may help survivors of CSA. It has helped me a TON.
Thanks for listening.

 

[Chris4TheMill]

I really like Esther Perel's work. What you outlined is true and helpful, although there are other more subtle but important details to the whole process. And undoubtedly a lot of individual details related to who we are, our temperament, and how we reacted to our abuse. Also, yes, sexual templates can change as one is able to identify one's real desires and needs and learn to connect those to new ways of thinking about connecting and sex. There are sexual templates that I never thought I'd ever get free of, and after a long time, I am. Creating new sexual templates is actually crucial to the process, as you mentioned. This can take alot of time though, and it definitely takes work. Glad you are forming this important framework and using it to build bridges to carry you out of the things that you are seeking to be free of.

 

[i-m-Bri]

I know I have a core sexuality that has been distorted .
Shame, anger and self hate smothered my innocent urges.
I feel that having been exposed to sex early forces the bloom.
Out of its natural sequence without other systems in place sexuality can be grotesquely deformed.
My mind wasn't ready.

I am actively nurturing my base sexuality.
Yes I am attempting to rewire my brain.
I try not to allow myself to participate or engage in fantasies that reference hierarchy, shame, punishment or humiliation.
Instead I encourage my mind to roam in a place where physical pleasure is given and received with joy.

Will I ever be confident enough to bring it into the real world and expereince it?
One step at a time.

 

[PRFL]

Although I'm having some trouble grasping the concepts, to me this makes a lot more sense than being told over and over that I was born a certain way, that my abuse had nothing to do with my current behaviors and that I was in denial and I should embrace and celebrate urges I don't want to have. I've been trying to process this with my T and he seems to start to get it, but still is seeing things through the paradigm of identity, and to me, I can't wrap my head around the idea that a behavior that is an attempt to act out a severe trauma is an identity that I can't change and that I should accept or celebrate. This is not to say that there's anything inherently wrong about any behavior, provided that it is what I truly want and is life-affirming, but I don't want to base my identity on trying to reenact my abuse.

 

[George]

PRFL,

I agree with you. You/we weren't born into shame, fear, self loathing, addictions, etc... Same with the chaos our budding sexuality was thrown into. Why would we celebrate any of that mess? Like everything else in life that's worthwhile, it takes a lot of work, even blood sweat and tears to work through to fix.

 

[PRFL]

Thanks, George.
It is comforting that at least somebody GETS it. I have a long history of seeking help, going to many counselors because of my SSA, and I kept getting fed the line that I was born that way and that I was in denial, so I caved in eventually, feeling too worthless and unfit to have a wife or children, yet I NEVER felt identified as an LGBT. Since women were out of the question, I did get into relationships with men, I did had a partner for 12 years and while the relationship had its issues, I learned to survive until he got sick with cancer and died, so I've been in a tailspin since then. I've tried getting support from the LGBT community but I simply don't feel a sense of connection or belonging, but on the other hand, I feel too tainted and damaged to pursue a heterosexual relationship (I did manage to have a few of those but they didn't end well as I was still struggling with the question of whether I was LGBT, not realizing that was NOT the real issue. I'm now 59, alone, and feeling resentful of well meaning professionals that didn't get what I was trying to tell them. I'm back in therapy now, specifically to deal with my abuse and PTSD issues, and this resentment and distrust on my part is definitely affecting the therapeutic relationship.
So, I thank you for totally understanding what I'm trying to express, you most definitely get it.

 

[Chris4TheMill]

PRFL,

I thought you articulated it very well when you said "I can't wrap my head around the idea that a behavior that is an attempt to act out a severe trauma is an identity that I can't change and that I should accept or celebrate."
We should not be told that any sexuality that we come to recognize as dysfunctional is an integral part of our identity and can't be changed. That's simply not true. I am surprised however, that you have been fed that line for as long as you indicate, since to my knowledge it reflects a more recent change in psychological practice. I've had 5 major counseling relationships since the 90's, and I have only encountered that kind of attitude with the current one. But even he recognizes that what happened to me as a young person was exploitative abuse and altered my identity structure.

 

[PRFL]

Thanks, Chris,
My first attempt at counseling was around [edited to correct dates} 1981, when I was aged 21 [end of edit, originally I said it was 1985 at age 25]. I was in postgraduate college and I burst into the counselor's office crying because I was so lonely. A really nice guy whom I still remember fondly. When, after several sessions, the issue of my feeling attracted to men came out and I was afraid I might be gay, he proceeded to reassure me that it was OK, I remember him talking distinctly about how famous people like artists and musicians were gay, how in Roman times it was not a big deal, how sometimes people were "agents of change", he continued to explore my fears of what people might think, my religious biases, etc. I didn't want to hear any of that. Once the label "gay" came up, that's all they could see, and it became a struggle because they thought (and I thought too, since I had no other frame of reference) that I was trying to change my orientation. I went on to see a psychiatrist, with pretty much the same results. I moved to the mainland US, again, since the only way I could articulate my SSA concerns were in terms of whether I was gay or not, the whole therapy turned on why I was trying to deny my identity. I was referred to a gay men's support group, was given a resource list for gay men, that sort of thing. I did mention my molestation at age 11 with another boy the same age, only to be told it was "normal exploratory behavior", without taking into account that the other boy was very domineering and I felt tricked into it. so, by age 26-27, a counselor told me "I don't know what I can do for you", so I thought, fine, I guess I'll have to do this on my own. I've never had a girlfriend because I felt dishonest at also having SSA and felt so unworthy. POSSIBLE TRIGGER WARNING!!!: So I wound up going to a gay bar, there were private video booths and some creepy guy gave me a bj. I felt disgusted but said,OK, this is what I am. I went on to go back and met a guy that was emotionally abusive so I left after a year. I figured I was gay since that's all I ever known even though I could never identify with any of it. I did have a couple of relationships that were nurturing enough, and as I was starting to feel better, I noticed heterosexual feelings emerging. I went to a sexuality clinic and they told me right off the bat that "changing orientation is extremely difficult, that their approach was talk therapy. I thought this wouldn't help since I've had so much of it. I went to another sexuality clinic, I had a lot of assessments, even met with the whole staff, and they seemed symptathetic, but because of the distance, they referred me to the first sexuality clinic, and I thought forget it, this shit ain't gonna work. I did have a private counselor and when I confronted him, he was sympathetic but wasn't sure how to help me, other than to tell me "shop around", meaning, try to have relationships with women to see how I feel. So I did try to have relationships with women, the sex itself was great, the best in my life, but being that I had no clue on how to relate to women, these relationships didn't work out. I was in my 30s by then. The last girlfriend left me abruptly, presumably because I was going to move across the country, but she's always insisted that she never wanted to get married again (this is the only woman that I thought I might marry), then I later found out, a month after breaking up, that she got engaged with a guy he just met a month before. It felt like a slap on the face. When I did move, the minute my plane landed, I started obsessing about men, eventually I had a fling and felt horrible, thinking I was a sex addict. The counselor I had at the time was pretty cool and he didn't think I was much of an addict, but he thought I was being too puritanical and that I should try to get laid as much as possible, men, women, whatever, so I did, going to bathhouses and massage parlors. Eventually I moved back to my original city, met my partner, we were together for 12 years then he got cancer and died. I've been thinking all along I guess I'm gay, but in the years since he died, I've been terrified of the prospect of having sex with another man, thinking it was a grieving issue, but now I'm experiencing sexual interest in women. Problem is, I'm now 59, with a long history of same sex encounters and I fail to see how a woman could find me attractive with that kind of history. I'm currently in therapy specifically for my abuse history, so at least they are not giving me the "born this way" speech, but I still feel they are still trying to fit me into that paradigm. My T has talked about terms like "sexually fluid" and that's driving me up the wall, because it's trying to attach a label that I don't want. Being that i"m having some serious transference issues with my T that have nothing to do with identity or orientation, I'm focusing on those, but eventually I feel that I've been done a disservice by well-intentioned people that couldn't grasp what I was trying to tell them.
Sorry for the long, long rant. I've been carrying this frustration now for decades.

 

[Tedure]

I know I have a core sexuality that has been distorted .
Shame, anger and self hate smothered my innocent urges.
I feel that having been exposed to sex early forces the bloom.
Out of its natural sequence without other systems in place sexuality can be grotesquely deformed.
My mind wasn't ready.

I am actively nurturing my base sexuality.
Yes I am attempting to rewire my brain.
I try not to allow myself to participate or engage in fantasies that reference hierarchy, shame, punishment or humiliation.
Instead I encourage my mind to roam in a place where physical pleasure is given and received with joy.

Will I ever be confident enough to bring it into the real world and expereince it?
One step at a time.

Thanks for you response and for sharing your Great strategies. It takes time like you said one step at a time , I guess that's why we have a lifetime to figure it all out.
much love and respect,

Ted

 

[Bradley P]

Thank you for sharing! This is very insightful to read. I think what can be most burdensome is that it seems sexual things associated with the abuse can be even more intensely arousing than things that are not associated with the abuse. That is what makes me, for example, feel so broken after all these years :/

 

[Bradley P]

Although I'm having some trouble grasping the concepts, to me this makes a lot more sense than being told over and over that I was born a certain way, that my abuse had nothing to do with my current behaviors and that I was in denial and I should embrace and celebrate urges I don't want to have. I've been trying to process this with my T and he seems to start to get it, but still is seeing things through the paradigm of identity, and to me, I can't wrap my head around the idea that a behavior that is an attempt to act out a severe trauma is an identity that I can't change and that I should accept or celebrate. This is not to say that there's anything inherently wrong about any behavior, provided that it is what I truly want and is life-affirming, but I don't want to base my identity on trying to reenact my abuse.

^^^^^This is so vital and such an eloquent articulation of how so many of us feel. For me, enacting SSA (same sex attraction) thoughts through porn and masturbation incites a PTSD reaction, a reaction of intense feelings that remind me of the abuse, even when viewing things that may only be indirectly related to the abuse, and even when not masturbating for instance. To me, I think perhaps the main difference between an orientation and an imprint that relates back to abuse is that definitive experience--I think maybe people who have not been abused, or who did not associate SSA feelings and arousals with abusive situations can experience gay feelings w/o it bringing up the PTSD/abuse feelings. Those who's orientation may not be gay will likely have difficulty experiencing same-sex arousal w/o feeling the PTSD/abuse feelings associated with it, because that's how those feelings became introduced in the first place--i.e., through abuse.

 

[F.A.]

This is really good information. It gives me another tool to work with as I try to undo the damage that happened to my young brain.

I don't believe you can tell a survivor of CSA you were born with a certain sexual identity because we never had a chance to develop it naturally and let it unfold, we had everything distorted. We really have no real reference point to our true sexual identity and we might never find it, it could have gone out with our authentic self when we disassociated to survive the abuse.

 

[NC-Survivor]

Thank you so much for this. Sooo much truth!

 

[Tedure]

Thanks for your response!

 

[Tedure]

Thanks for your great input you are very right. Regretfully I was was never given the chance to emerge into sexual awareness and puberty under my own terms and at the appropriate age.

 

[NC-Survivor]

Thanks for your great input you are very right. Regretfully I was was never given the chance to emerge into sexual awareness and puberty under my own terms and at the appropriate age.

TRIGGER ALERT - Is it weird I actually felt stunted!?!? I was a "late bloomer" physically, and the "touching" by the Minister-perp was when I was 20 (but looked 16). Perp-father stuff happened when I was 3. I was never able to "M12" (jo) "all the way" until I was 24! (despite the normal amount of "trying" )

 

[Tedure]

Thanks for sharing!! We all have our own time-line.

 

[KMCINVA]

I really like the way she has framed it--templates that become imprinted from childhood experience. I believe with the recent research on neuroplasticity the mind can be changed on how it processes information allowing templates to be changed. Neuroplasticity allows the brain to reorganize its thought processes by forming new neural connections. I am still learning about it and the science probably is over my head.

 

[NC-Survivor]

Thanks for sharing!! We all have our own time-line.

I can't help but wonder if the "delay" is/was CSA related. Like a mental block was put in place forbidding puberty for as long as possible.

 

[Tedure]

Well I have to remind myself offten that, Sexual templates are sexual behaviors which turn us on the most. Our sexual template is an expression of our inner core, windows into another facet of who we are. A sexual template imprinted on a child from their experience while being abused is extremely damaging and destructive. Whatever gives you the greatest pleasure sexually is information about you. It’s telling a story, in some cases a story about your sexual abuse… not necessarily on a conscious level. You’ll find aspects of yourself that you've been seeking all along and trying to understand. If you want to understand the logic of your sexual behaviors or sexual templates you have to understand how you were loved or not loved as a child.


You may ask if sexual templates can change. I do not know of any research which shows they can be stopped. The reason the sexual fantasies and templates are so strong and are not able to be changed is that they come from the earliest time in our lives when our brains were imprinted most profoundly.


What is possible is to add to the sexual templates (This allows you to change your focus and when you change the way you look at things the things your looking at change!) You can learn new sexual ways to become turned on. You can create other-new sexual templates. It is also possible to prevent your sexual desires from ruling you and your behaviors. It does not have to dictate how you act on them. However you may still find yourself continuing to be aroused by them.”

Perhaps the template I feed the most will be the one that thrives,